I liked your review. The only thing I didn’t like about Underworld is the pace of combat and platforming. They felt switched in a way. Combat was a bit sluggish and limited while the platforming was snappy yet too fast.

I'm currently replaying underdworld, and I'm quite enjoying it.
My only complaint is that the gameplay feels a little unrefined. Everything is faster, but Lara often gets caught on the environment, misses blatantly climbable platforms, and the camera often got stuck not allowing me to see where I wanted to jump.

__________________
joined the cult of Tumblr or something -Catapharact

Pretty much agree with everything on your honest review, except I always enjoyed the very last part of the game with the moving platforms (however it was glitchy !).

I love the fact that this is the most capable Lara of the series, well at least on platforming, definitely. She has an incredible amount of moves in this game and one of the main reason why I cherish this unfortunately flawed game. I wonder if it existed a game even today with a massive moveset, I'm a bit sad the game didn't have a credit for this in the general press/public gaming.
Pity the animations are so-so and the controls a bit clunky (though, not terribles in my eyes). I would love at least a new sequel to LAU, to see Lara performing all of this with good-looking and smooth animations. Would be worth it only for this. I imagine with mid-air turning (not as too much permissive as in the reboot though) and the axe mechanic (one of the few things I like with the reboot platforming, it's to use a button to climb, a little nod to the classics) on climbing surface Lara couldn't grab with hands.

Lackluster for me was the story, not seriously done. I would like more connections and consistence with Legend while keep its North mythology. I don't think connected it with Anniversary was good, maybe it's why the story feels little and cheesy. Or done it much better, because I still like Doppie.

I find the combat floppy. The dodges were ineffective and while I like the adrenaline mode, it was too powerful. The AI not that good, at least for humans, I think for wildlife it was okay. Pity as there is a good variety of enemies, maybe the only one to have more than only 3 or 4 types of enemies with Anniversary in the Crystal/EM games. Even better with some original ones (nagas and thralls) and some we didn't see in years at the time like sharks and spiders.

The secrets and the rewards felt like a last minute addition, except for some relics they were too much of it and uninteresting to search and pick. That was good in Legend and Anni... Uh Underworld deserved extra time to developed a lot of things, I wouldn't mind a release in the end of 2009 instead. It had a lot of potentials for me. But Eidos needed the game as soon as possible to save their ass (sigh).

I'm glad to see a good review of the game, it's rare. This game was too much criticized (and it's very understandable), with so much hate sometimes that it is revealing to see. Underrated, eh !